advertisement

AP News in Brief at 11:26 p.m. EDT

Keuchel, Astros beat Yankees in AL wild-card game

NEW YORK (AP) - Dallas Keuchel pitched three-hit ball for six baffling innings, Colby Rasmus and Carlos Gomez each homered, and the Houston Astros beat the New York Yankees 3-0 Tuesday night in the American League wild-card game.

The orange-clad Astros now advance to the AL Divison Series, where they will face the defending AL champion Royals. Game 1 is Thursday night in Kansas City.

Keuchel worked 16 scoreless innings against New York in the regular season, and the bearded 20-game winner was just as tough pitching on three days' rest for the first time in his career. He struck out seven while walking one.

Rasmus sent Masahiro Tanaka's first pitch of the second inning soaring into deep right field. Gomez, who only had five plate appearances after missing nearly two weeks with a strained chest muscle in mid-September, connected on the first offering of the fourth.

American League hits leader Jose Altuve had an RBI single off Dellin Betances in the seventh.

___

AP INVESTIGATION: Nuclear smugglers sought terrorist buyers

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) - Over the pulsating beat at an exclusive nightclub, the arms smuggler made his pitch to a client: 2.5 million euros for enough radioactive cesium to contaminate several city blocks.

It was earlier this year, and the two men were plotting their deal at an unlikely spot: the terrace of Cocos Prive, a dance club and sushi bar in Chisinau, the capital of Moldova.

"You can make a dirty bomb, which would be perfect for the Islamic State," the smuggler said. "If you have a connection with them, the business will go smoothly."

But the smuggler, Valentin Grossu, wasn't sure the client was for real - and he was right to worry. The client was an informant, and it took some 20 meetings to persuade Grossu that he was an authentic Islamic State representative. Eventually, the two men exchanged cash for a sample in a sting operation that landed Grossu in jail.

The previously unpublicized case is one of at least four attempts in five years in which criminal networks with suspected Russian ties sought to sell radioactive material to extremists through Moldova, an investigation by The Associated Press has found. One investigation uncovered an attempt to sell bomb-grade uranium to a real buyer from the Middle East, the first known case of its kind.

___

South Carolina cleans up, but worries remain amid floods

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - The family of Miss South Carolina 1954 found her flood-soaked pageant scrapbook on a dining room floor littered with dead fish on Tuesday, as the first sunny day in nearly two weeks provided a chance to clean up from historic floods.

"I would hate for her to see it like this. She would be crushed," said Polly Sim, who moved her 80-year-old mother into a nursing home just before the rainstorm turned much of the state into a disaster area.

Owners of inundated homes were keeping close watch on swollen waterways as they pried open swollen doors and tore out soaked carpets. So far, at least 17 people have died in the floods in the Carolinas, some of them drowning after trying to drive through high water.

Sim's mother, known as Polly Rankin Suber when she competed in the Miss America contest, had lived since 1972 in the unit, where more than 3 feet of muddy water toppled her washing machine and turned the wallboard to mush.

"There's no way it will be what it was," said Sim. "My mom was so eccentric, had her own funky style of decorating, there's no way anyone could duplicate that. Never."

___

10 Things to Know for Wednesday

Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about Wednesday:

1. FBI FIGHTS ATTEMPTS TO SMUGGLE NUCLEAR MATERIAL TO TERRORISTS

The successful busts, however, were undercut by striking shortcomings: Kingpins got away, and those arrested evaded long prison sentences, sometimes quickly returning to nuclear smuggling.

2. SOUTH CAROLINA GETS A RESPITE FROM RAINSTORMS

Tuesday was the first dry day since Sept. 24 in the state capital, but officials warned that new evacuations could come as the huge mass of water flows toward the sea.

___

Top general recommends keeping more US troops in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON (AP) - The top U.S. commander in Afghanistan recommended on Tuesday that President Barack Obama revise his plan and keep more than 1,000 U.S. troops in the country beyond 2016, just days after a deadly U.S. airstrike "mistakenly struck" a hospital during fierce fighting in the north.

Gen. John F. Campbell told Congress that conditions on the ground have changed since Obama announced his plan in 2014 to cut the current U.S. force of 9,800 to an embassy-based security contingent of about 1,000 in Kabul post-2016. Obama has vowed to a war-weary nation to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan and get American troops out by the time he leaves office in January 2017.

Campbell said, however, that Afghanistan remains engaged in a violent battle against the Taliban, military operations in Pakistan have pushed fighters, including those linked to al-Qaida, into eastern and northern Afghanistan and the emergence of Islamic State fighters has further complicated the conflict.

Campbell, the top commander of U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan, said that dropping to 1,000 troops would leave the United States with limited ability to train and assist the Afghan forces and even less capacity to conduct counterterrorism operations. He said the different options he has provided to his superiors are for troop levels beyond a normal embassy presence of about 1,000.

Campbell refused to discuss the numbers of troops he is recommending. But when Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, asked Campbell if he thought the president should revise his troop withdrawal plan, Campbell replied: "I will stomp my foot. Yes, sir."

___

Search for answers begins in sinking of US cargo ship

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) - On board the 790-foot El Faro when it set out on its doomed voyage into the path of Hurricane Joaquin were five Polish workers whose job was to prepare the engine room for a retrofitting.

Could that work have caused the loss of power that led to the U.S. container ship's sinking?

The vessel's owners say they don't believe so, but the question - along with the captain's decision to plot a course near the storm - will almost certainly be part of an investigation launched Tuesday by the National Transportation Safety Board into the disaster near the Bahamas that may have claimed 33 lives.

"We don't have all the answers, I'm sorry for that. I wish we did," Anthony Chiarello, president and CEO of ship owner Tote Inc., told reporters. "But we will find out what happened."

The 41-year-old El Faro was scheduled to be retired from Caribbean duty and retrofitted in the coming months for service between the West Coast and Alaska, said Phil Greene, another Tote executive.

___

New generation of disillusioned Palestinians drives unrest

SURDA, West Bank (AP) - A new generation of angry, disillusioned Palestinians is driving the current wave of clashes with Israeli forces: Too young to remember the hardships of life during Israel's clampdown on the last major uprising, they have lost faith in statehood through negotiations, distrust their political leaders and believe Israel only understands force.

The recent re-election of hard-liner Benjamin Netanyahu to a fourth term as prime minster has only deepened the sense of paralysis.

Some young Palestinians say they want to emulate those killed or wounded in confrontations or attacks on Israelis - like Mohannad Halabi, the 19-year-old law student from the West Bank who stabbed to death two Israelis in a bloody rampage in Jerusalem's Old City over the weekend before being shot dead by police.

"We are all impressed with what he has done," said Malik Hussein, a 19-year-old friend and fellow law student at Al-Quds University near Jerusalem. "The day after the attack, university students took to the streets and clashed with Israeli soldiers. Mohannad's way is the only way to liberate Palestine."

Despite such fervor and a rise in violence, it's not clear if conditions are ripe for a new uprising against the Israeli military occupation that began in 1967 when Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem.

___

Transplanting ovarian tissue helps some women have babies

LONDON (AP) - The biggest study ever of women who had ovarian tissue removed, frozen and transplanted suggests the experimental technique is safe and can help about one third of them to have babies.

The procedure is intended for women with cancer who wish to preserve their fertility, since cancer treatments can harm the ovaries. Scientists typically remove one ovary and cut it into strips before freezing them. Years later after the woman has recovered from cancer, doctors typically graft some of the thawed-out tissue onto the remaining ovary.

Researchers followed 41 women in Denmark who underwent the procedure from 2003 to 2014. Among the 32 women in the study who wanted children, 10 later got pregnant and gave birth. Globally, more than 36 babies have been born to women who had ovary transplants, with 14 in Denmark.

Unlike most countries, Denmark offers the treatment free to all women who qualify. The technique is not part of routine cancer care in Britain, but is available at some clinics there and in Europe, including Belgium and Germany.

"Once we transplant the ovarian tissue, it takes about four to five months for the ovary to get restarted," said Dr. Claus Yding Andersen, the study's senior author. The paper was published online Wednesday in the journal, Human Reproduction.

___

Guatemala to investigate for those responsible for mudslide

SANTA CATARINA PINULA, Guatemala (AP) - The warning signs were everywhere in the canyon neighborhood of Cambray on the outskirts of Guatemala City, where a mudslide buried hundreds of people last week.

Residents lived with regular falling rocks and flooding from the adjacent Pinula River. Evelyn de Cifuentes said her mother-in-law was killed in a smaller slide in 2010 next to her own house. A November report by Guatemala's National Disaster Reduction Commission said there were "fractures in blocks of material that can indicate future slides," and people should be moved out.

But the area wasn't declared uninhabitable until Monday, four days after hundreds of people almost certainly perished when a hillside buried acres of the neighborhood. The official death count stood at 186 Tuesday, with 300 people still believed to be missing.

The Guatemala prosecutor's office announced it will conduct an investigation into who was responsible for allowing the dangerous conditions to exist.

"We will establish the degree of responsibility as best we can - who authorized construction in that area, and whether someone didn't take appropriate action to avoid this tragedy," said prosecutor Rotman Perez of the political crimes section.

___

Syrian rebels face a new reality amid Russian air campaign

BEIRUT (AP) - The U.S.-backed rebel group Tajammu Alezzah has been fighting the Syrian military outside the city of Hama for months, but a new player has joined the fray: Russian warplanes, which have repeatedly hit their front-line positions, followed by airstrikes from government planes.

Russia's bombing campaign, now a week old, has created a new reality for Syria's opposition. The rebels say the airstrikes are meant to weaken the rebellion against President Bashar Assad, not just crush the Islamic State and other militants as Moscow contends.

The Russian airstrikes, more powerful than those by the Syrian military, have hit along several key fronts, even attacking rebel bases along the border with Turkey. That's an area the opposition had considered to be relatively safe because Syria's air force has avoided it.

Rebel factions - moderates, Islamists and radicals alike - have had to evacuate some bases and move ammunition stores, according to opposition activists and rebel commanders. The rebels are calling for their regional backers, such as the Gulf countries and Turkey, to boost their support, including more sophisticated weapons like anti-aircraft missiles.

Many warn that the Russian intervention will only strengthen extremists like the Islamic State and al-Qaida's branch in Syria by rallying people to their side, while the already beleaguered moderate forces are weakened further.

Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.